The Grey NATO - Ep 69 - TGN Film Club 1

Published on Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:00:04 -0500

Synopsis

Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss their favorite movies that align with the interests and themes of The Gray Nado podcast, such as travel, adventure, and the outdoors. They each share their top 5 movie picks, including documentaries like "Touching the Void," "Deep Water," "Alone in the Wilderness," and "Blue Water, White Death," as well as fictional films like "North by Northwest," "Where Eagles Dare," "The Life Aquatic," and "Senna." They provide synopses and commentary on why these movies resonate with them and recommend them to the listeners.

They also announce an upcoming meet-up with listeners during the Hodinkee 10th anniversary event in New York on December 8th, and share some final notes, including promoting the latest issue of Hodinkee Magazine, which they both contributed to.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, brought to you by Hodinkee. A loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 69 and we thank you for listening. Hey Jason, how's it going?
James Stacey Oh, it's going pretty well. Yeah. Winter is slowly creeping in here. We had some snow. I actually got some skiing in last weekend. I saw that. Kind of turning the corner a little bit here, trying to kind of get in that mindset. But, uh, okay.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I saw you stacking a bunch of wood in the back of the Landy.
James Stacey Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, firewood and it's, it's firewood and whiskey and ski season. So, uh, yeah, yeah. In fact, I've got some, uh, if we get interrupted here during our recording, uh, uh, UPS is scheduled to deliver a new pair of Fisher skis here for me. So I'm pretty excited about that.
Jason Heaton Hey, that's great. Yeah. Fantastic.
James Stacey How about you? What's, uh, what's happening?
Jason Heaton Yeah, no, it's a normal time, but really busy. This is a busy time of year, you know, we have Hodinkee 10 coming up. So there's a lot to kind of prepare for that. And obviously, a lot of you listeners are, you know, going to be at some of the panels, obviously, we want you to say hi, and that sort of thing. Other than that, you know, I've got like, oh, six or seven or eight, you know, let's call it eight watches in for review currently. So all of those have to be shot. kind of ASAP. Yeah, because I get kind of I get like anxious when I have this many in my office where I would just rather like have one or two and be sending one back and then yeah, kind of back and forth, but I got a ton in here. So I have a ton to shoot. And I have a bunch of travel ahead. I'm heading to London tonight. And then I'm back from London for a couple days. And I go to Paris for a few days. And then I'm back for a few days. And then it's Hodinkee 10. So Wow. It's a real pace this time of year and just kind of a lot on the plate. But I'm glad we get a chance to record another episode.
James Stacey Yeah. And with variable weather around the northern hemisphere and then the holidays, it can make traveling a bit of a dicey proposition. So I hope it all goes well. You know, as you mentioned, we'll both be in New York from the 7th through the 9th of December for Hodinkee's 10th anniversary. festivities and panel discussions and evening events and we've carved out a little bit of free time for us to have a little grenado get-together at a pub nearby. So this is kind of an open invitation to listeners out there. Spread the word and if you've got some free time on Saturday the 8th from 4 to 6 p.m. James and I are going to kind of duck out of the Hodinkee extravaganza and sneak over to a place called the Half Pint Pub and Hopefully, we'll see a few of our listeners there. Feel free to pop by and grab a beer or a drink there. We're certainly not asking you to buy us drinks and we're not footing the bill for anything here. We're just going to go there for a breather and hope to meet a few listeners.
Jason Heaton So yeah, the Half Pint Pub, it looks like a bar. They're capable of handling what we think is kind of enough people. We don't really know how many people are going to show up for this, etc. We do really want to do this. It's something that I think Jason and I haven't really approached correctly in the past. It's like if we're in the same place or even if we're just in a place and have a little bit of time, I think this is kind of a fun thing to do. We obviously have, you know, there's a little bit of a community thing sort of happening. A lot of people kind of on the same page. So it's just south of Washington Square Park in Manhattan, a really easy part of town, kind of between NoHo and Greenwich Village. I think that puts it relatively close to where the panels are being done as well for H10. And like Jason said, it's a couple of hours. I don't know how many people are going to come, but I don't think we're going to have trouble getting a few people out. And like Jason said, we're not paying. We're not expecting you to come and pay for drinks or food for us. It's just like a normal hangout that you would have with your buddies. We'd love to connect with some of the people who came into town to check out the panels. And I think it's going to be really fun.
James Stacey Yeah, I think so too. And, you know, I mean, given the response to the H10 event, there simply isn't room in all the rooms that they're hosting the events. And so people will inevitably have some free time. And hopefully if you do during those couple of hours, you can stroll a couple blocks away and meet us for a beer.
Jason Heaton So I hope to see you there. So that's the 8th between 4 and 6 p.m. And if you're legitimately interested in being there, you need to also follow us on Instagram in case the venue changes, in case the timing changes, or in case we have to move to some sort of reservation system due to demand or popularity or something like that. So all of that's a little bit still up in the air. You know, we've got a little bit less than, you know, a month on the table here, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be great to be in New York. I've never, I've never really done New York in the, in the, in December, I guess we were there last February for all the Breitling things.
James Stacey Wintery experience back in the, I think it was pretty wintery that day.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that was the one where your flight was all messed up. Of course.
Unknown Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Heaton So keeping on topic, we thought we'd start at the top of the show, kind of talk about what watch we're wearing kind of in the last little while, since the last episode, something like that. So Jason, you want to kick that off? Tell me what you've got on wrist. Yeah, sure.
James Stacey I mean, this is kind of going to be sort of a new segment for us just to kind of orient ourselves to kind of what we've been wearing in the past couple of weeks, maybe what people have seen on our wrists on Instagram lately. I have to say, I was really inspired by your Talking Watches segment on Hodinkee with Philip Mokey Martin.
Jason Heaton Isn't he the greatest?
James Stacey It actually affected me more than most Talking Watches episodes, which are great, but they tend to be revolved around collections. People are acquiring watches and collecting them. I think Mokey, his story was just... He was a great storyteller. I think you did a great job just letting him talk. And then, you know, his watches, I mean, he only had three watches on the table, but, um, I was, I was pretty gripped by it. I thought it was really awesome. And I, it was just so cool to see it on the strap, um, that it was on in, in the picture of him from 1968. Uh, it was really, really, really cool. So anyway, you know, circling around here, um, I have this, uh, this old, uh, Tudor Submariner from 1976 with the snowflake hands and And I hadn't worn it in a while and I had to pull it out and wind it up and put it on because it's just such a great piece. And after seeing him and hearing about all the abuse he's put it through, I thought, hey, I should wear this. And it certainly is one of my favorites. So that's what I've been wearing. And then just recently, I got in Unimatic's new watch, one of their new watches that just debuted today, we're recording this on the 20th, it's their Modelo Tre or their U3 which is a dive chronograph. So it's a chronograph version of the U1 that's just been wildly popular with everybody it seems in any of its configurations over the past couple of years. But this is their first chronograph and it's a dive chronograph and it's You know, for the most part, it's a real winner. I know you wrote it up for Hodinkee and I think you even saw it when you were in New York.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I got to spend about five minutes with it. I can go through the specs. Yeah. You know, it's 40 millimeters, I want to say 13, 7 thick and 51 millimeters lug to lug. So it's very wearable in size, especially if you kind of, like, I think if you know, like, if you look at the Unimatic, I do kind of think that you understand mostly how they wear. Yeah. They're kind of chunky, but not big. It's kind of a neat thing. It's like if you imagine a smaller Seiko in some metric. It's really hard to kind of explain, but I think they wear fairly well. They don't wear especially snug. They kind of have their own profile that sits on top of your wrist. Yeah, it's kind of a flat side profile view. Yeah. And I don't think they wear tall, like 13'7 for a dive chronograph with a thousand feet of water resistance is perfectly fair. I mean, you could actually say that it's thin.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton For what it is, it has a huge crystal, like a very thick crystal, two and a half millimeter thick crystal, you know, with a double dome. It has that sterile bezel, which I really love. It has a really, really good just standard time display because they basically just took the hands and markers that they established for the U1 and moved it here. And then they kind of sandwiched a chronograph in it and it uses a Mecca quartz movement. So it's a quartz watch with kind of a mechanical actuation system to activate the chronograph. Yeah. So you get kind of the nice feel to the pushers and a more mechanical kind of interface with the watch, but otherwise it's a quartz watch. So the pricing is super fair. It could easily be like a really strong, like grab and go second watch on a trip, that sort of thing, because you get the quartz, you get a chronograph in case you need it. It can go in the pool. You can get sand on it. Like they make a steel in a DLC version. And I want to say like it's what 650 euro is the top spec price.
Unknown Yeah, right.
Jason Heaton So I think it's 550 euro for the brush steel and 650 euro for the black DLC.
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, that's, that's super reasonable. I mean, it's, uh, what I like about it is, I mean, I'm kind of a sucker for their aesthetic, uh, in general, and I'm also a sucker for a dive chronograph. I mean, dive chronographs are arguably, you know, not the most kind of useful as a dive tool. But I think if you want a chronograph, but you also want the versatility and ruggedness of a dive watch, this splits the difference. And they did a really kind of cool thing with the push pieces. So it actually has the screw down pushers and the sleeve for the pushers when you unscrew them to make the chronograph usable. They just sort of roll out like a barrel up against the outside sort of lip of the push piece. And it just looks like these big thick uh, pushers and I don't know something really burly about it. It's almost like it has three crowns because the crown on these watches is big to begin with. So kind of the profile look, I love just sort of the straight on look of this watch from top down, which is that classic, you know, unimatic, very modernist, um, minimalist sort of look. But then with these big chunky pushers on the side, I think where it's a bit of a miss in my opinion is kind of the legibility of the, of the sub dials. Um, I think, you know, you get, it's a, it's a buy compacts or, or to register chronograph. So on the left you get, um, the elapsed minutes and then on the right side you get the, uh, the 24 hour, uh, counter, which it's, it's the same movement that, that, uh, autodromo has used and several others have used this movement. Um, it's kind of what's available out there in, in affordable, chronograph movements for a lot of these micro brands, and so that's why you're seeing it more and more. But I just wish that Seiko would introduce one that didn't have the 24-hour counter, because it's not a second time zone, it's just tracking the 24-hour time for what they've got. It's just a totalizer. It's just a totalizer, yeah. And so that's not terribly useful, and then I find that the hash marks on the minute counter are just, they're small, kind of this, um, sort of a, it's supposed to look like this sort of faded guilt patina sort of look, and they're slightly illegible. I mean, they're kind of hard to read at a glance. Um, as is the sweep hand, the sweep hand has a, uh, a loom plot kind of on the tail of it, but not on the sweep end of it. So I just find it not terribly easy to read. And, you know, as a chronograph, I think you kind of want a little bit more legibility. So I think kind of the form factor of the watch, kind of the case and the pushers and everything, it looks great. I just feel like that the dial could be a little bit more clear.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, I think in my, in my writeup, I said that myself, you like, you like a dive chronograph. I'm not even a chronograph guy. Um, in general, like, uh, you know, I, I like, I like the concept of a Speedmaster, but I don't, I don't yearn to own one. I've borrowed one before to under, to try and see if this is something I really needed on my wrist. And I think it's awesome. They're super cool, but I don't like want one, you know what I mean? And I don't see that, like, I think when it comes to complications, I very much like multiple time zones over being able to time something. But that could be because, you know, when I need a chronograph, I grab the Aerospace or I grab one of these cheap Casios. And I think I only use a chronograph when I'm running. And I don't know if I would want to take a Speedmaster as my daily running watch or something like that. So for me, I really like the way this watch looks. I like the aesthetic of a dive chronograph, even if I'm not about the functionality. So for me, the fact that the chronograph implementation feels kind of secondary to the attempt at porting the U1 aesthetic into a dive watch, it doesn't really bother me that much. I think it's a difficult chronograph to use if you had to use it all the time, but it is there and it's functional. And the thing is, like you said, It would be great to see a different kind of version of this movement from Seiko. But what you get is, you know, this watch, if you look at... Let's say you buy the most expensive one, it comes on a cordovan leather strap, and it comes with a kind of nylon NATO style strap with matching hardware, like, you know, Umatic covers all the bases that way. Yeah. And that's like the raw transfer. So I assume before you pay for shipping or whatever, it's like 740 bucks right now, US. Yeah. And that's a pretty cool watch for $740, $750 bucks. I mean, like, especially for in a market where, like, what we're seeing is a lot of watches that I think are kind of chasing the C4. Right, right. These kind of relatively simple steel, you know, maybe they've got a 12-hour bezel, maybe they have different bezel options, maybe they've got kind of some fun dial colors. Like, I think a lot of people saw that success and that's what they're going for. Yeah. You know, Unimatic is offering a different thing. It's very distinctive in terms of its aesthetic. I, you know, I'm not crazy about faux aged lume, but I do like the way this watch looks. It feels really good in your hand. It feels a little bit too big for my wrist, but I'm also like, I'm currently, I currently have just been kind of spoiled by smaller-ish sort of watches. Like I threw on my Seiko SKX the other day. And even that felt big. And I was like, well, I might be losing a frame of mind a little bit. I should, I should like try and maintain some plus 40 millimeter watches because that's not like the SKX just isn't a big watch.
Unknown Yeah, right.
Jason Heaton Yeah. For a dive watch with a mechanical movement and a big crystal and a good bezel, like that's, it's the size that it needs to be. Yeah. With these Unimatics, they're kind of the size that they need to be. And I think it's an interesting watch at like a fair price. And if you dig the aesthetic of the U1, but want something a bit different, Or you like having a chronograph, you know, you occasionally got to cook some macaroni, or I don't know what people use a chronograph for in their day-to-day existence. Yeah. But if you need one occasionally, I think this is a cool option, especially, like I said, being quartz, this could be your kind of second watch, a travel watch, a vacation watch, like it can do all those sorts of things really well.
James Stacey That's a good point. And, you know, now that I think about it, I mean, I have a Doxa T-Graph, which is a dive chronograph, and I almost never use the chronograph. I have a Speedmaster, I never use the chronograph. Like I was saying, the appearance of a dive chronograph is almost more attractive to me than the functionality of a dive chronograph. And this does hit that mark. And certainly the ability to kind of, you know, some people don't care for screw-in pushers. I happen to like them. I think it just gives it this sort of burly, really functional look. And they're just fun. These work really well. They're really nicely smooth, smoothly threaded, easy to grip. And they're just fun to screw and unscrew and play with. Yeah, overall, I think it's a winner. It's a really fun watch, especially for that price. So I think, you know, I don't think they'll have any problem selling them.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. So what about you now? So you said you, the Aerospace is your go-to running watch and that sort of thing.
Jason Heaton I mean, like the thing is, is like, I'm kind of in a mode right now where, um, I'm just, I'm just wearing that the Explorer 2 or the Doxa.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And I kind of don't wear anything else. And then if I need something with, uh, with a chronograph or if, um, like there was a few times where I was just leaving the house and like, my gold Casio was just kind of on the desk. So that's what I picked up and had for a couple of days. Yeah. Um, I feel like I'm at a point, sometimes I'm at a point where I feel so busy that I'm not even going to think about the watch. So whatever's running, the aerospace is perfect for that. Yeah. Because whatever I get into, it's just kind of, it's just like one unit of really operational watch. Right. Um, I adore that watch. I mean, it's, it's still a fantastic thing to own. They're still not that expensive. I was laughing to myself because if they made a gold plated aerospace, I would wear that. Wouldn't that be cool? That would fall right into the wheelhouse of where I am right now, because I don't have the money to, say, buy a solid gold watch. And there are some solid gold Aerospaces that exist, not of this generation. And you see them, and they're like $10,000 or $11,000 because they're solid gold with a bracelet. But if I could get this titanium one with a full gold plating, keep the gray dial, That would be a wild watch. That would be so cool. That watch would be so much fun and so dumb and so perfect all at the same time. Yeah, yeah. I would totally be about that. I don't know what's involved in getting something like custom gold-plated, and I know like the movements in these aerospaces, you don't really want to take the watch apart. Right, yeah. You typically end up having to replace the movement, and finding spares and other watches that use the same movement can be kind of difficult, but that sort of thing. But yeah, I was laughing because I love the watch so much. Um, but it would be, it would be just a hilarious watch in gold.
James Stacey Oh yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey That'd be awesome. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, I see your point and I often do sort of just have a watch that I'll just reach for when you don't want to have to think about a watch. I mean, there are days when you're kind of in that watchy mood, but some days it's like too busy, it's running, it's small, it's light. I don't have to think about it. And you know, for me that, that tends to often be. Uh, like the CWC that I talked about on a previous episode or, um, or like, you know, Submariner or something, which is very much a watchy watch, but it's very small and light and kind of, you can beat it up. And so, yeah, I see, I see where you're at with that. Yeah. So should we, uh, should we jump into our main topic today?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think main topic is probably a good plan. So the idea with this is we're kind of starting a little bit of a new thing. You know, we have a couple of shows that essentially represent like a series, like collection inspection. And Jason and I talk a lot about movies, and I think most people talk about movies. It's a touchpoint that's fairly accessible. Occasionally, when we feel like it, we'll do TGN movies and just kind of establish this list of a collection of films that we really love, that we also think would just kind of generally apply to anyone who would listen to this show. It's about that easy. I've actually received a few emails about talking more about movies or watches in movies or movies that we love and like there's lots of great movie podcasts and I would recommend obviously check those out if you want to learn more about film and new films and things like that. This is not going to be that, this is literally just going to be us trying to pick movies that we like because they would apply to the sorts of things that we already talked about on TGN. Yeah. So they're not necessarily going to be the world's best movies, they're not going to be always like general classics, they're just going to be things that we like to watch. quite a bit. And some of them we've talked about quite a bit before, but we've got a little list for this episode. And I'm excited to kind of add this in because I really genuinely love film.
James Stacey Yeah, I do too. I actually keep a little, when we talked about doing this episode, I just pulled up this little notepad thing that I've got on my phone that I just keep adding. I call it Desert Island Movies. And I just, every time I, you know, I watch so many movies, you know, annually, if not more than that. And I just thought, you know, I'm just going to refer to this list and The list is quite long, so we actually had to kind of whittle it down to kind of limit, otherwise we'd be talking for hours here.
Jason Heaton We're going to try and buzz through 10 movies an episode, but I think any movie is about watching the movie, not about talking, especially if you haven't heard about it. If one of these 10 movies you've not heard about, you don't want us to talk about them for 10 minutes each. I think all of these are like, I'm looking at the list and I think these are all really good. And then I saw some of the ones that you had on your list that would also be on mine, but you removed. So I know like the next episode is pretty solid too. So yeah, there's a, there's some good stuff there, but yeah, if you want to dig in with the first one, let's, let's, you know, keep them to a few minutes of film.
James Stacey Yeah. Um, well there's, there's one that, uh, that I watched, I used to watch very regularly when I still had a DVD player and I haven't, I haven't pulled it up in a while. Um, but it's, it's such a classic of, uh, sort of outdoor survival documentary film, and it's, uh, touching the void. Um, we might've talked about this on a show, maybe a couple of years ago. Um, it's, uh, so, you know, just in a, the, the, the 32nd sort of summary of it is, um, two climbers, two British climbers are setting out to attempt to summit a peak in, in a very remote part of the, of the Andes in South America. And, uh, it's called Cielo Grande. So they, they established their base camp. They, they, are headed to the summit. They encounter some vicious, vicious, uh, weather with very high winds, blowing snow. And I don't want to give away the movie. I mean, obviously the, you know, spoiler alerts are, uh, necessary here. We don't want to just kind of describe the whole plot, but something goes horribly wrong. And, um, one of the guys is, uh, is forced to, um, basically fight for his life to, to get out alive. And, um, his name is Joe Simpson, very accomplished British climber. His partner was Simon Yates. And the movie was a documentary made by a filmmaker named Kevin McDonald. And he based it off of Joe Simpson's book of the same name, which is actually an excellent book, too. It's an amazing book. Yeah. But the movie is a nice blend of sort of talking head sort of interviews with Simon and Joe and a couple of other guys, along with some really, really excellent reenactments, which Reenactments can come across in a very cheesy sort of way if they're not done well. But this one they used some accomplished climbers and some really great filmmaking. And just it's just a superb, superb film. Very, very gripping. And like I said, I've watched this movie half a dozen times, if not more. So yeah, that would be close to the top of my list.
Jason Heaton I could not agree more, especially not only about the movie, um, but about your statement about the reenactments. I despise reenactments in, um, in documentary films. Uh, even when it's done like a war film, I find like, it's super annoying. This would be the exception to the rule. The reenactments are incredible. They add so much to the context of the story. This is an absolute must watch. Touching the void, read the book, see the movie, do both. It's amazing. Great, great pick. Yeah. Go for it. My first one will come from a completely different direction, but I'm sure it's one that anyone who knows me knows that it makes any list of movies I'm going to talk about, and it's North by Northwest. I think one of the best movies of all time, probably my favorite movie, definitely my favorite old movie or non-modern movie. Yeah. It's 1959. It's Cary Grant at his peak. It's Hitchcock. It's an incredible thriller that includes a ton of travel and intrigue and plot twists and it's aged really well. It's also you watch it and you realize that it developed or, you know, helped inform a lot of the way that thrillers exist even now, um, in how they treat their audience and how, what, you know, versus what the main character knows versus what the bad guys know. And, and, and all these sorts of things. It's just a fantastic movie. And I mean, Hitchcock is Hitchcock. He's got some great ones. Yeah. Yeah. And there's others, there's other Hitchcock ones that are going to, that will hit this list eventually. But for me, it's North by Northwest. It's one of these movies I keep kind of on my person when I travel, um, because it's, it's like a respite and, and I love, I just love it. It's full of great conversations. There's a certain like almost Tarantino-esque nature to the way that some of the conversations are done. And obviously that predates Tarantino by a wide margin, but it gives you like a rough idea that like they allowed the movie, the ability to feel human. by allowing the conversation not to sound, you know, like a staged play or something like that. And for 1959, this is fairly cutting edge. Yeah. Uh, I highly, highly recommend North by Northwest.
James Stacey Yeah. Fantastic story. Even the name has sort of come into such, you know, sort of common lingo. I mean, it's, it's, it's almost a movie that everybody almost thinks they've seen, even if they haven't seen it and it has some very famous sort of iconic scenes in it. But, um, absolutely. I love this movie and it's been, It's actually been many years since I've seen this, so you've inspired me to dust it off and check it out again, but great film. Anything by Hitchcock is a sure winner anyway, but this one's definitely at the top of the list. My second movie is moving from the mountains to the ocean. A movie also I've talked about probably more than once, and that is called Deep Water. I would say it's kind of, it's almost the, It's almost the sailing version of Touching the Void in that it's sort of an ocean survival story. The centerpiece of the story is a pretty horrible tragedy about one of the contestants in the 1968-69 Golden Globe Race, which had a group of sailors trying to beat each other in a solo round-the-world race. And I don't think that movie had any reenactments. It was mainly archival film footage from the race as well as kind of more of those talking head sort of interviews really well done again. It has this sense of gray sort of melancholy and I don't want to emphasize that it's a very depressing film. you know, the music and sort of the lighting of the movie and everything just, it has, it's very much a sort of a melancholy kind of movie, but, but it also is of it's of a, of a certain time. And that sort of late sixties sense of daring do an adventure right around the time of the space race and achievements like this are very appealing to me. And I just feel like this movie has, has a lot going for it. And, I would just say don't watch it on a kind of a dark rainy day, unless you're feeling particularly joyful, because it is a sad film, but it's really well done.
Jason Heaton That's fantastic. I've seen part of this movie I haven't seen, I didn't finish it. And I think more maybe to that reason, I maybe wasn't in the right headspace to endure that film. Yeah. I mean, you put yourself in the person's, a great movie puts you right with that. Yeah. scenario. And a really quality documentary about a bad time is something that I've often inadvertently internalized, especially on a plane. And these things can kind of hit you kind of harder. And yeah, definitely. Fantastic movie, one that I will remedy by seeing all of as soon as possible. So my next one is a classic in the Stacey household. It's something we watch most Christmases. Um, it is 1968's Where Eagles Dare. This is a very TGN movie. It's like adjacent to James Bond. It's more about spies than James Bond and the military. Like I know James Bond is a spy, but like James Bond's a very specific type of spy movie. Yeah. It's about James Bond. Yeah. Whereas this is, this is literally about an information triangle, I guess you could call it, between Nazi high command and, um, the, British Secret Service and an American Ranger played by Clint Eastwood. And it's basically about a group of guys essentially infiltrating the Nazi high command base, which was the Eagle's Nest, which is loosely based on a real place, which I got to go to, you know, in Southern Germany. And anyways, it doesn't require too much explanation. It's a really, really entertaining, but not overly accurate in any way. story of a group of people infiltrating this base and then essentially establishing themselves in various levels of the Nazi high command. It has kind of a final scene that is so clever and so well produced, and it's beautifully shot. It has an amazing score. I really love this movie. It's cheesy, but not in a way that I think you could ever hold it against the film. It's just kind of is what it is. It's of its time. Clint Eastwood's like, It's like peak Eastwood and like none of the Nazis can fire a gun or throw a grenade correctly, but none of the British or Americans are missing. It's, it's, it's a lot of like fantastic action sequences. There's some really cool planes in the, uh, in the film. It's in, it's in, you know, it's in the Austrian Alps, it's in the German Alps and it's, it's a, it's a great thing. I highly recommend it. It's got a great like cable car fight, which is right out of like a James Bond. Uh, please take some time and watch where eagles stare. It's super fun. Uh, a great, a great one.
James Stacey Yeah. I, I am shame. I'm ashamed to admit that I've never seen this movie and I know you've, you've told me time and again to watch this. I've read the book and I love the story and I can, I can imagine that I would love the movie. So, um, you know, anything, it's a good time of year to watch that sort of thing. You said you watch it at Christmas, but I know the sort of mountain adventure movies I always kind of like to watch, uh, in the winter for some reason, you know, uh, absolutely. Lots of snow and skis and parkas and that sort of thing. So. Yeah, I'll check that out. Number three for me is, um, it's actually, so I've got mostly on my list today. I have, uh, documentaries. This is the one exception and it's a movie called Pioneer, which is another movie I talked about in an earlier show, but since we're kind of doing a, uh, capsule sort of roundup of, of our favorites, um, this definitely takes a place on the list. It's a, so it's a fictional piece, but it's based on, a time in history when saturation diving was kind of in its infancy and the Norwegians were sort of competing with the Americans for kind of achieving the right gas mixes to use for the saturation divers and kind of techniques to use to allow the divers to stay on the ocean floor while they were working in the oil exploration industry. I think oil was discovered kind of on the floor of the North Sea back in the 60s and there was a kind of a big race to get there and work out exactly how to harvest it all. But this movie is, it's an interesting twist because you have that element as a backdrop, but in kind of the foreground is the story about these sort of paranoid group of divers that are all sort of suspicious of each other Um, because there's a mysterious death at the beginning of the movie that is somehow related to a possible sabotage with one of the divers gas mixes. And, um, the movie is set in, I would say probably the early seventies. And, um, so you get all that kind of great, uh, um, you know, clothing and kind of styles and, and cars and things in this movie. And, um, there's actually some good watch content in it. A couple of the guys where, um, what I would imagine are like sea dwellers or submariners. It's a Norwegian film, but there's an American actor in it, so a good part of it is in English, some of it's in Norwegian. I don't know, it's a weird movie, it's kind of hard to describe, it doesn't sound like it would be all that engaging, but I think those of us who are into that history of diving and saturation diving and its overlap with watch development will get a kick out of it, but also it has this surprising undertone of of menace and sort of paranoia and intrigue that just makes it really interesting. So check it out, Pioneer. I think I've seen it on Netflix. I've watched it probably two or three times now.
Jason Heaton That's how I watched it was on Netflix and I fully agree. I can't add anything to what she said. It's absolutely worth watching if you're interested in that topic, even at a general level. Super cool. Yeah. Okay, my next one is one that we have definitely talked about quite a bit and that is Alone in the Wilderness. The Dick Preneke documentaries. I feel like I don't even know where to start because we definitely talked like at length about these in the past. And I would say start with the first one, but it's the story of a man who essentially disconnected from his life and everything that was going on in like general modern shared society. And he found a place, a very remote place on the water in Alaska. It was called Twin Lakes. And, uh, and he, over time, uh, and while shooting a lot of the process on an old BolaFlex, he went up and built a cabin and then lived there for, geez, it was like almost 30 years or even longer. Yeah. Yeah. Decades. It's it, it's amazing. I mean, they produced, they produced the, these documentaries based on the notes that he kept in the letters that he wrote and all that sort of thing. And, and, and he shot a ton of film of what the nature was like around there and what his daily process was like. And what it was like, you know, to build a cabin, like literally by hand, like when he went up there, he didn't even take the handles for like axes or tools. He made those. And then once those were made, he started to make a whole house and like he decided to make a fireplace and he decided to make like a storehouse, like a high, a highly raised shed to store things in and keep them away. Yeah. It's incredible. I mean, the guy is incredible and not only are these movies amazing and they made, I want to say in total four films about him, two that are strictly kind of alone in the wilderness, kind of one and two, if you will. Yeah. Not only is he incredible, these movies I find to be like intensely relaxing and calming. I totally agree. It's an absolute anti-anxiety drug. Like if you're having a tough time and like your phone is bugging, your computer, like email's bugging you and there's too much light in your house, there's like LEDs on your TV that are always blinking, like the stuff that just kind of like gets under your skin. Yeah. I can like sit down with this and like plate a decent food or like sit down on a plane with this and just totally be in the woods in Alaska, you know, glassing the slopes, looking at bears, fishing for a trout, making flapjacks, like... You know, he had, he had somebody who would come up every now and then in a plane and he would trade them all sorts of stuff, like a handmade spoon. He would trade for some, like he had a whole thing going and like, I love, I love this guy so much. You have to see these movies. They're so special.
James Stacey It's, it's, um, it's a very humble film. It's a very friendly film. He, you know, it's not man against nature. He's very much at ease with it. And it's very pleasant even in the coldest winter weather. Um, you know, even with wild animals around, he's very much in sync with it all. Not to mention the sort of warm tones of that, whatever film he was shooting. It's just this beautiful... Yeah, and the music, all of it. The music and the narration, really spectacular. And it just goes... It's humbling, but it's also inspiring to watch this. It gives you a sense of how capable this guy was and how... If you just put your mind to it, just try things, and I think that's what he did.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I also think there's something about... I was reading this thing by Frank Ocean, you know, musician and artist, but he was saying that when he gets, when he's really stressed out, he'll, he'll watch live television. And the fact that those people are doing something that's actively stressful and they're okay with it makes him feel okay.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And I think that not so much that what Dick Preneke is doing in that movie is actively stressful, but rather that he saw what was missing in his life or what he needed and he just went for it and he went for it all the way.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton it kind of makes me think like, Oh, I could have, I could probably be really happy with like 5% of that. Yeah. Yeah. Like just, just go camping a little bit more. Like if I could get really good at camping, I feel like I would feel right. A little bit more like Dick Preneke. Like he, the level of self-actualization is so high in the film. Um, you're seeing somebody that's doing what they were designed to do, which I really like. And my next pick is actually also the same sort of thing in an entirely different way. But yeah, please, uh, if you like the idea of essentially watching a vlogger, Build a cabin? Yeah. Because that's what he was doing, like he had a camera on a tripod, occasionally he had a friend there, so sometimes you'll get like a tracking shot.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton When a brother or somebody came to visit him, but like it's really simple photography, it's not that different than vlogging really, but he's telling this like grand story of the minutiae of just not being part of it. Right, yeah. Just he had this space and that's what like was what he wanted.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. It's a good one, yeah. I totally agree, and you can just, I'm sure people can tell by our enthusiasm how good this is. So yeah, I got to check that out. Yeah, it's funny how I'm noticing that several of these movies we're pointing out are older movies. In fact, my next one is also an older film. It's called Blue Water, White Death, another one we've discussed. Yeah, it's another one of these sort of inspiring movies in a weird way. The book Blue Meridian was was written by Peter Matheson who was on this expedition in the early 70s to be the first to film the great white shark underwater, so in a cage. It's one of these sort of rollicking expedition stories that almost could only have been done in the late 60s, early 70s when expeditions were still mounted by guys with lots of money that just wanted to go out and do things that Kind of the time when Cousteau was going to Antarctica and you know people were just doing big bold things and Peter Gimbel who was the Kind of the guy behind this film and the expedition was you know The son or grandson of the founder of Gimbel's department stores. He had a fair amount of money. He was very adventurous He was the first guy to dive the Andrea Doria when it went down in 1954. I think it was and and So, you know, Gimbel cooks up this elaborate scheme, gets an old whaling ship and a group of expert divers like Ron and Valerie Taylor from Australia, Stan Waterman, the cinematographer, the videographer, filmmaker, Peter Matheson, the author, and took them all on this boat on this trip around the world with a folk singer to provide the soundtrack. And they go from South Africa to Madagascar to Sri Lanka and end up in Australia. And, you know, you actually don't see the great white shark to the end of the movie, but it's along the way, they just have such adventures. And again, it's of that era, the music, the clothing, some great watch shots, spectacular diving footage, you know, at a time when, you know, underwater cinematography was relatively new and, you know, big giant camera housings and very primitive dive gear. Just a great, a fun movie to watch. I think it's enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in the past few years. I think people are rediscovering it. For a while, it was very hard to find.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I got it on iTunes and if you didn't put this on your list, it would have been on my list. I think it needs to be in the first 10 that we talk about. Yeah. It is so good. Yeah. There's a scene, I will give a heads up, there's a scene where they cover, I would say they're not bored, but I mean like they're not looking at sharks at the time, so they cover the whaling industry out of Durban.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And if you're not about watching whales be captured and then slaughtered, just skip ahead. Yeah. It's not important to the theme of the film. You're not going to miss seeing some sharks. They eventually, you know, start to follow the floating whale carcasses that are kind of kept at sea until they can be picked up by the correct boat. And that's where they think they'll find some interesting sharks. Yeah. And so they dive in that scenario, which is interesting, but you can skip a lot of the stuff of like them watching the whale trade in the late sixties in Durban, which is just barbaric. Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, I think the film's like super watchable and obviously there's a ton of stuff in that film that actually speaks to one on my list, which is almost a parody at some point of that film in both direct and indirect manner. Yeah. Blue Water, White Death and the book Blue Meridian, both are absolutely outstanding. Blue Meridian is probably one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I mean, I've never read anybody that writes like Matheson.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And his attention to things like birds and color and form and detail is just, it's incredible, especially in a book that isn't that long. Yeah. Yeah. He just, there's no fat on that book and it's so beautiful. That's a fantastic book as well. So do, that's another do both.
James Stacey Yes, I agree. I agree. And it's funny, a lot of these, a lot of these movies we're talking about were based on books, um, where eagles dare and, uh, uh, touching the void, et cetera. So yeah. Uh, what have you got? What's your next one?
Jason Heaton So my next one, I might as well go with what ties nicely to Blue Water, White Death, which is a favorite. It's The Life Aquatic. Oh, yeah. So everything I've had so far has been kind of loosely more serious. I don't think I can make a list of movies and not have a Wes Anderson. And while I don't think that The Life Aquatic is my favorite Wes Anderson, it is the most TGN Wes Anderson. Yeah. So The Life Aquatic is One that I imagine most people know is it's quite a bit more modern than some of the other stuff we've been talking about, but it's essentially a parody of the Cousteau framework with Bill Murray as the Cousteau, the very flawed Cousteau character. It has an unbelievable cast. It's Wes Anderson, so it doesn't look like other movies. It's gorgeous. And then it kind of pays direct tribute, like loving tribute to things like Blue Water, White Death. They have a French bard that's playing like David Bowie covers throughout the film on their boat. And, you know, they have this boat that they love. They have rivals, you know, played by the simply wonderful Jeff Goldblum. The cast is so good. The music's amazing. The movie looks incredible. It's super funny. You know, Owen Wilson plays a lead role. I'm a huge Owen Wilson fan, the Wilson brothers. And obviously they're tied to Wes Anderson in a big way. If you haven't seen this movie or like you saw it once when it first came out and you're like, I don't remember really what it was about. Check it out. It's an absolute favorite. It's another movie that's like super fun. It's a little bit whimsical. It's a little bit kind of harsh at times. They do a lot in one movie with Life Aquatic.
James Stacey Yeah. And it's such a touch point that I think people that haven't even seen it kind of mention it. You know, I think I posted a picture of a red stocking cap a few weeks ago and said, you know, this is very Cousteau or something. And someone said, or Steve Zissou or The Life Aquatic.
Jason Heaton Team Zissou.
James Stacey It's very much a touch point, yeah.
Jason Heaton Everybody gets a red hat and a handgun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.
James Stacey Well, my last movie is, I'm not even going to go on too much about it because we've talked about it a lot on the show. That is Meru. Meru, you could probably listen to episodes over the past six months and you'd probably hear enough about that movie to know what it's all about. But definitely a TGN favorite, probably at the top of the list for both of us. Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, Renan Ozturk, three climbers who went to India to climb a very remote and very difficult high peak twice and endured some incredible hardships along the way. Friendships were strained, people were almost killed, bodies were broken, and just spectacular cinematography and storytelling. The movie was put together by Jimmy Chin and his wife, Elizabeth Versa-Haley, who recently partnered on Free Solo, which we just talked about, which also could be on this list today. Absolutely. But before you see Free Solo, see Meru. It's definitely up there with Touching the Void and kind of the canon of great mountaineering films. So I'm not going to go any further into that movie because we've talked about it a lot, but I just had to put it on the list.
Jason Heaton I definitely don't have anything to add. Maru is a must watch. If you're not watching that movie, you're not doing it right. Yeah. And my last one is oddly one that I've been contrasting in my mind with Free Solo, which is a documentary called Senna about the life and career of Formula One, Brazilian Formula One race car driver Ayrton Senna. Yeah. And if you don't know the name, if you don't know any of that, then, you know, by all means, This is a great, this is a really great place to step in. I actually don't know that you have to care that much about Formula One. It helps because you'll understand some of the context, but you're looking at, um, I don't know, like you could, you could say that he's the Wayne Gretzky of the sport. He's the Alex Honnold of the sport. He's the, he's the Michael Jordan, you know, coming back and winning three more in a row of the sport. Like you take your pick, like what analogy you want to make, but ultimately all of those people are the Senna of their sport. Yeah. Yeah. This guy was designed to do one thing and it was to be a Formula One driver. And he did it at great personal cost. He did it with a determination that like almost nobody else has. Obviously there's some other amazing Formula One drivers that probably couldn't have done other stuff. He was an amazing person and listening to him talk about what he, how he viewed his role as a race car driver is so, so similar to the way that like Alex Honnold would talk about how he wants to climb or how he sees climbing. from his mindset. It's so singular and it so purposely downplays risk and danger and cost in the face of excellence and perfection and doing things the way that it needs to be done because you're in that space. Not cutting corners, not doing this, not doing that. He was a fierce competitor. Please, if you don't know who this is or if you just slept on it, I mean, it either won a documentary award or was nominated for the Oscar. I don't remember. It's amazing. It's a great documentary. It's beautifully told. It's wonderfully shot. And of course, because, you know, he came to prominence in a time when everything was being filmed already. There's a lot of archival footage. So there's lots to see, lots to learn, and a really interesting character in the space.
James Stacey I agree. I saw this in the theater when it first came out. Um, I haven't seen it since, but it was, I'm glad I did. And, uh, um, I'm not a huge formula one fan, but that movie, I think transcends the, the, the specific sport. Um, yeah.
Jason Heaton So I don't really even like sports. Yeah. I don't even really like sports, but I love sports documentaries and I think this is a really great one. Yeah. It, you know, it was, it, I think it's a thing, so I can't say much more than, uh, than to watch. Uh, I think, I think anybody will like this film and the other nine that we talked about.
James Stacey Yeah, me too. I mean, I think this was a really fun episode. I think it's a nice idea that I'm looking forward to continuing in the future, and we'd love people's feedback on these films or others in the comments on Hodinkee or thegraynado at gmail.com or on Instagram. We're passionate about movies, and I know we talked about a few today that we've talked about in the past, but I think we wanted to encapsulate all of them in one episode to keep a record going here.
Jason Heaton From like a mechanical standpoint, the audience is now considerably larger than it was before we made this partnership with Hodinkee. Like diehard fans are going to find that there'll be some repetition. And part of that is, you know, in developing something about TGM movies, we're going to talk about the movies we like, and that includes ones we've talked about in the past 68 episodes. But another part of that is like, I'm going to be a little bit less conscious about going over the same topic occasionally, simply because there is a considerable growth in audience and people who maybe haven't had the time to go back over Or the wherewithal. It's a preference, of course, to go back over and listen to two years of past episodes.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Well, cool. Well, I look forward to the next installment of this. Yeah. So why don't we jump into final notes?
Jason Heaton Sure. So my first is a really easy one, and it's one that I know Jason will agree with. So it's a bit of a cheat for this week. But Hodinkee Magazine, Volume 3 is out. And both Jason and I contributed to the magazine. I'm exceedingly proud of both Jason's work and my own in the magazine. And I also think that the entire team at Hoding Key, you know, being led by John Booz, they made a remarkable thing. I like the magazine in the past two issues, and I think that this one absolutely swings for the fences. I think it delivers a ton, and I think it's something special.
James Stacey Yeah, I agree. I mean, I love this renaissance of really high-quality print mags, and this one's no exception. I'd have a hard time picking which of the three volumes is my favorite so far, but I think they all kind of really stand on their own and worth checking out.
Jason Heaton So, yeah. Yeah, and Jason, you wrote a really fantastic look at watches and their connection to motorsport, which is called Speed Thrills. And I had the great pleasure of doing a couple pieces that were kind of co-authored with people much more famous than myself, including a piece I helped author with Jimmy Chin about his watches and using these kind of weird watches in scenarios like Maru. So I think that's definitely, I had, it was such a treat to make that piece. So I think it could be super fun. And we also managed to get some pretty incredible photography to support the piece. But yeah, I did a one man, one watch with Jimmy Chin about kind of the watches he uses as a tool. for that job. And, you know, it's these beat up Suntos on a piece of like paracord that you wear around your neck or hang above you in the tent at night so that you can set an alarm to get up at the right time. I really had an absolute blast with this. You know, there's an amazing city guide. There's an incredible look at some Zagato cars by Ben, like a really, really special in-depth stuff. It goes deep. The photography's incredible. And yeah, and I also got a chance to kind of wax poetic with a feature about GMT and travel watches, like modern GMT and travel watches. So if any of that tracks, I mean, a lot of it's very TGN, so it's something that I know we're both proud of. So you can actually subscribe to the magazine now, which is cool. That wasn't something we offered previously. Or you can buy the issue directly through Hodinke. We'll obviously throw a link there, or a good newsstand will actually be carrying it as well. So if you're in a big city or the right spot, you might be able to find it in person.
James Stacey Yeah, right on. Well, my first one's also a magazine piece, but it's also available online now. It's a story by a writer named Allie Carr Troxell. And Allie is actually now the managing editor over at Gear Patrol. But prior to that, she was a freelance writer, and she wrote this piece for Outside Magazine. And the story's called My Father's SOS. from the middle of the sea. And, um, we were alerted to the story by, um, uh, Kyle or Kyality on Instagram, who's a longtime listener, um, who also happens to be a marketing manager over at a gear patrol these days. Um, so thanks Kyle. And I actually had seen this in the, in the print edition that came a couple of weeks ago here and really enjoyed it. Um, so it's, it's a, it's a sad story. It, uh, it's actually an interesting kind of followup from, from my movie pick of deep water. in some ways because Ali's father was, after he retired, he had this ambition to sail around the world by himself. And so he set off across the Pacific from Mexico and a few weeks into his trip, his wife received an SOS message, kind of kicked the family into high gear, trying to figure out what to do and what happened. His further missives from the middle of the ocean became kind of garbled and strange and they weren't quite sure what was going on. And, you know, the sense of sort of panic and helplessness, I guess, is what really struck me about this story. Uh, just, you know, what would you do if you had a family member that was writing to you from the middle of nowhere, basically, um, saying that he was having trouble and it was, it's a, it's an incredibly well story. It's an incredibly well told story. by someone who was extremely close to the story. And I think that that that's what really struck me is that someone could write about this thing that happened to her father so eloquently. So, um, we'll put a link in the show notes again. It's called my father's SOS, uh, from the middle of the sea, um, on outside outline.com.
Jason Heaton So it's a wild story and a great pick. What's your second one. So, yeah, my second one is, Hey, uh, can't go too long without a video from Henry catchpole. And so CarFaction and Henry teamed up for a look at the Vantage V600, which is kind of the goodbye to the current Vantage body style. I mean, there is a new Vantage out now, but this is the kind of last hurrah of the last generation's body style, which was, I would say, one of the most beautiful cars made in the modern era of safety and technology and those sorts of things. And it's an absolutely special thing. They're making 14 of them. all done through Aston Martin's Q branch. So it's all heavily customized. And then on top of that, there's a bunch of like standard, if you will, standard for the 14 cars, customization, these special treatments to the hood and to the front grill and to the arches. And they've kind of changed and kind of made it just what they wanted it to be. And then on top of that, it's a V12. It's a stick. And they just kind of went for it. They went for it. They wanted to make, you know, make the best Aston Vantage of that generation that you can, you know, they haven't at least when they may not put a V12 in the new one, which uses that hot V4 liter twin turbo from Mercedes, which is an absolutely, you know, fantastic. But you know, you're looking at 600 horsepower, or I guess five, it's 600 PS, so it's about 592 horsepower, something like that. And a lot of it is based on the the race car version of this car. So if you if you want a frame of mind, imagine Aston's version of say, a really special edition, Porsche GT3 Touring. So it keeps a lot of the race car bits underneath. Oh, yeah. But otherwise tries to tries to make a less racy, you know, it doesn't have a giant wing, it doesn't have, you know, it doesn't it just it doesn't look like a race car. It looks like this gorgeous, special Grand Tour. And the video is incredible. And Henry, as always, is great. And all the team behind Carfection, they're They're operating at such a high level now, especially, uh, you know, I, I absolutely adore Henry's videos and, and this one is absolutely worth watching. So it'll be in the show notes. Cool.
James Stacey Yeah. I've gone too long without Henry. So, and I hope you, I hope you get to bump into him someday on one of your car trips. I'd love to hear how he is. Yeah. Uh, my second one's a short one, short and sweet. Um, it's a, it's a watch strap. Um, most people are familiar with isoframe straps, the big heavy, um, solid, you know, high quality rubber straps for, dive watches, kind of the descendant of the straps that first came on Ploprofs and that sort of watch back in the early 70s. But a lot of people find them a little too stiff, a little too expensive. Well, Toxic Nados, our friend Terry, who helped us out with our TGN straps last year, has his own version. It's called the Magnum and it's excellent. I was looking for kind of a quick and easy and cheaper alternative to isoframes and just, you know, kind of remember that he had something like that. And I went over to his site and I ordered a couple, I got a Navy blue one and a black one. And, uh, they're, they're definitely more supple than isofranes. They're, I would say slightly thinner, but they, they aren't, um, kind of sticky tacky silicone. Um, they're not stiff. They, um, they, they wear really well. Um, they, they, to me, they don't feel like much of a compromise in quality from, from an isoframe. In fact, they're actually more comfortable. So those of you that maybe find isoframes just too bulky, too stiff, and too expensive, definitely check out the Toxic Magnums.
Jason Heaton Good tip. I mean, we love Terry, obviously a huge fan of the NATOs. It doesn't surprise me that he's been able to source a solid rubber. And if it's a bit thinner than a And an isoframe that's that's saying a lot because, you know, the isoframe that it's a chunky thing. If it's on a watch and it doesn't sit quite right. Yeah. A slightly thinner sort of option is it could make a big difference on wrist. Yeah, definitely. So as always, thanks so much for listening. And a big thanks to Hodinkee for supporting the show. Hit the notes via Hodinkee.com or the feed for more details. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton, at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. And please keep in mind, we have a get together that's on the 8th of December, 4 to 6 p.m. And we leave you with this quote from Touching the Void author Joe Simpson. Fear seems to exist only in our imagination.
James Stacey Without imagination, without the ability to see our place in the future, to work out the consequence of a particular event in all its gruesome detail, we would be quite fearless.